Music-visualizers have become an integral part of the music listening experience and a mainstay for most media devices. However, most related art music-visualizers use a repeating, or a semi-repeating, pattern of colors, movement, or shapes to provide an abstract interpretation of music being played. These visualizers usually typically run “canned” complex animation algorithms or “canned” mathematical formulas on a central processing unit (CPU), akin to what can be seen on computer screen-savers. This related art approach works well on powerful personal computer (PC) platforms having substantial processing power, but the related art approach is not amenable to low power embedded platforms.
Currently, the conversion from a sound signal to a video signal, in the related art, is performed by a central processing unit (CPU) of a personal computer (PC) due to the ease and flexibility of its programming environment and the ample processing power available on most modern PC platforms. Typically, these PC-based conversions use a traditional music-visualizer algorithm, involving analyzing the music, associating the analyzed data to a plurality of preset or “canned” animation parameters, and calculating a preset or “canned” visual representation of music using the plurality of preset animation parameters. In the related art, graphics processing units (GPUs) are typically used to “parallel” a three-dimensional drawing in general. Most related art applications use the graphics pipeline for solely rendering data at high frame rate.
Currently, the related art is not known to combine rendering with animation in a music-visualizer application for an embeddable platform, e.g., a television device, a set-top box device, and a hand-held device. Most of the related art music visualizers provide “canned” displays in relation to “canned” musical interpretations. Further, the current related art is not known to use shader-based methods for music visualization, especially with television or set-top box platforms. Therefore, a long-felt need is seen to exist in the related art for a real-time music-visualizer for displaying a real-time animated visual representation of music that directly corresponds to the characteristics of the music being played for embeddable platforms, such as television platforms or set-top box platforms, rather than merely relating to a preset or “canned” visual representation on a PC.